'Bitcoin Baby' Soon To Be a Teenager (blockworks.co)
- Reference: 0178001161
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/25/06/10/2134219/bitcoin-baby-soon-to-be-a-teenager
- Source link: https://blockworks.co/news/bitcoin-baby-fertility-doctor-early-adoption
Blockworks [3]tells the story of how it all came to be:
> In February 2012 -- almost two years after Laszlo's pizzas -- a fertility doctor named C. Terence Lee set about a personal and professional quest to onboard his patients to Bitcoin by accepting BTC for his services. He started with a "Bitcoin accepted here" sign in his window, and then a Reddit post.
>
> "Jumping in to do my part to support the BTC economy. This may be a historic first?" Lee wrote in [4]a post on the BitMarket subreddit, titled: "[WTS][USA] Male Fertility Evaluation." Lee was offering a 15-minute consultation to discuss fertility questions and a sperm analysis in exchange for 15 BTC, valued at $70 or so at the time. "Actual value over $100," he wrote. Within three months, he'd found a Bitcoin customer.
>
> "The patient turned out not... so much having a burning desire to know about his fertility, but he was a Bitcoin enthusiast, and he liked the idea of participating in history, in this ritual ceremony of what could be perhaps the world's first Bitcoin medical transaction," Lee [5]explained at a 2013 conference in San Jose. "So we chatted about Bitcoin. He taught me a lot about mining. That's how he acquired bitcoin. And we did a sperm test, and it turned out he had really good sperm ... after it was done he sent me 15 bitcoins... "
>
> Lee changed up his strategy to only quiz his most trusted patients. There was one couple, who, on their fourth attempt at IVF, agreed to pay in bitcoin for a 50% discount, with Lee walking them through exchanging U.S. dollars for bitcoin via CryptoXChange, a now-defunct exchange operating out of Australia. The sperm stuck, leading [6]CNN to reveal , on this day in 2013, "the world's first Bitcoin baby" -- a baby bought entirely with bitcoin. Thirty bitcoin to be exact, an amount then worth $500, or $3 million today.
[1] https://money.cnn.com/2013/06/10/technology/innovation/bitcoin-baby/index.html
[2] https://slashdot.org/~bobdevine
[3] https://blockworks.co/news/bitcoin-baby-fertility-doctor-early-adoption
[4] https://web.archive.org/web/20130617014247/https://www.reddit.com/r/BitMarket/comments/pzczn/wtsusa_male_fertility_evaluation/
[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4Mqm9F0V30
[6] https://money.cnn.com/2013/06/10/technology/innovation/bitcoin-baby/index.html
Doctors ?? (Score:2)
WTF?
Every one knows the first significant purchase was Pizza.
What has the world become?
Re: (Score:2)
> Every one knows the first significant purchase was Pizza.
That actually is mentioned already in the summary.
For a brief period before the transaction fees went kind of nuts, there actually were people trying to use this shit as actual currency. In the early days, you could mine it yourself, or mine alt-coins and exchange them for Bitcoin (mostly because there was still speculation in those days that some alt-coin might steal Bitcoin's thunder), or just buy Bitcoin directly from some sketchy exchange. Then, for all your trouble, you could figure out what Bitcoin
Re: (Score:2)
"For a brief period before the transaction fees went kind of nuts, there actually were people trying to use this shit as actual currency."
I've never stopped using BTC as currency. The transaction fee is $1.44 right now which is roughly the same as the fee for a $20 international paypal transaction or $30 domestic. Of course the BTC doesn't go up with the amount so if you buy a fishtank for $100 or a house for $250k you win pretty hard with BTC... even if you buy it internationally.
"Very few people outside o
Poor kid (Score:3)
> a baby bought entirely with bitcoin
I'm sure the kid will appreciate having been "bought".
Re: (Score:2)
Another one of those people who thinks dowries were a way to buy the bride... nope, dowries were paid to the husbands family to compensate for the financial burden of the bride.
Re: (Score:2)
> I'm sure the kid will appreciate having been "bought".
Heck, I'm still slightly miffed that I spent half a BTC back in mid 2014, to buy an Intel NUC DN2820FYKH through TigerDirect. (True story, I actually even still have it) Today, that'd be worth about enough to buy a Model Y and the obligatory "This is just my ride - not a political statement" bumper sticker.
But if we're talking $3 million or... a teenager? Yeah, the buyer's remorse would be hitting pretty hard.
One for The Onion .. (Score:2)
[1]The Onion [theonion.com]: ‘America’s Finest News Source’
[1] https://theonion.com/
On the flip side... (Score:3)
> 'Bitcoin Abortion' Never To Be a Teenager
'
Facts are facts.